Staff CAE Engineer

As the largest global shared micromobility business, Lime is on a mission to build a future where transportation is shared, affordable and carbon-free. A Time Magazine 100 Most Influential Company, Lime has powered more than one billion rides in close to 30 countries across five continents, spurring a new generation of clean alternatives to car ownership. Learn more at li.me.

Lime is looking for a Staff CAE Engineer to lead the structural integrity, safety, and weight optimization of our next-generation shared micro-mobility vehicles and infrastructure. In this role, you will act as a technical authority autonomously identifying, scoping, and solving the thorniest hardware challenges across our global vehicle platforms.

As a Staff-level engineer you work in conjunction with the mechanical engineering team to provide timely results in alignment with our Product Development Process. By delivering high-fidelity simulation data before design freezes, you will prevent engineering bottlenecks and eliminate late-stage development risks. You bring the pragmatic judgment required to balance digital engineering with physical realities, confidently determining when a problem warrants complex simulation versus when it is faster and cheaper to just build and test.

This is a hybrid role requiring 2 days per week in our San Francisco Hardware Development Lab for collaboration, prototyping, and testing.

We love to see engineering portfolios. Be prepared to walk us through a case study showing a complex structural failure or optimization challenge, your model correlation methodology, and the final design solution you delivered.

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  Locking Mechanism & Overload Analysis: Own the advanced simulation of our complex electro-mechanical locking ecosystem (including battery, hub, helmet, lock-to, and docking modules). Utilize Multibody Dynamics (MBD) and non-linear transient analysis to ensure these assets withstand extreme real-world impact and intentional vandalism before committing to production tooling.

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  Structural Weight Optimization: Drive the optimization of vehicle frames and weldments early in the design cycle. Use precise fatigue and weldment simulations to safely strip away conservative margins, lowering per-unit manufacturing costs and vehicle weight before designs are locked for tooling.

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  Dynamic & Environmental Simulation: Lead high-fidelity explicit dynamics simulations for severe, short-duration impact events (drops, sidefalls, curb strikes) alongside random vibration analysis to replicate aggressive road testing virtually.

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  Test & Field Correlation: Partner closely with the Reliability engineering team to correlate analytical CAE models with lab tests and actual field failure data, continuously elevating Lime's predictive engineering capabilities.

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  Global Collaboration & Manufacturing Support: Partner cross-functionally with internal engineering units and external suppliers globally. Support vehicle builds directly at our Asian Contract Manufacturers (CMs), which includes international travel approximately 2–3 times per year.

• Education: MSc in Mechanical Engineering (or a related engineering discipline), or equivalent practical experience.

• Experience: 10+ years of CAE simulation and mechanical design experience on commercialized products. Proven portfolio in advanced structural optimization, non-linear analysis, and mechanism design.

• Engineering Fundamentals: Deep, first-principles understanding of solid mechanics, materials, elasticity, plasticity, fatigue, and weldment/fracture mechanics.

• Advanced CAE Expertise: Mastery of Multibody Dynamics (MBD), explicit vs. implicit solvers, non-linear transient mechanics, and random vibration (NVH) analysis.

• Software Toolkit: Advanced proficiency in Abaqus (highly preferred), SIMULIA suites (Fe-Safe, Tosca, iSight), or equivalent high-end solvers, alongside 3D CAD software (SolidWorks preferred).

• Simulation Automation: Proven ability to build simulation automation workflows for efficient model processing using Python or MATLAB.

• Pragmatic Mindset: Highly autonomous problem solver who knows how to translate raw simulation data into actionable design directives and knows when to simulate versus when to physically prototype.

• Material Expertise: Aluminum metallurgy (6000 series), advanced manufacturing (HPDC casting, forging, extrusion), heat treatment (T4/T6), fatigue & fracture mechanics (S-N Curves, crack propagation), and weldment analysis.

Preferred Experience:

• Prior engineering experience within the automotive, bicycle, or adjacent micro-mobility industries.